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Real estate contingencies make comeback
During the recession of the early 1980s, when mortgage interest rates hovered near 18 percent, few home buyers could qualify for financing, particularly if they already owned a home that needed to be sold before buying a replacement home. Offers made contingent on the sale of the buyers' current home were popular.
Contingent-sale offers are increasing in the current housing market. Most buyers who want or need to make a move to a home that better suits their current lifestyle can't qualify to buy before selling their existing home due to stringent mortgage-qualifying criteria.
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Avoid house-rich, cash-poor pickle
DEAR BENNY: I am 58 years old and married. I have 22 years left on my 30-year mortgage, which is at 5 percent. I have a Roth IRA. I have some extra money to invest. In this current economy, what might you suggest? Should I pay money toward the principal on my mortgage? Put it in the Roth? I lost money in the stock market (bank stocks), so please don't suggest that I go back into stocks. Thanks in advance for any knowledge you might share.
--Tommy
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Add power to purchase offer
Figuring out how much to offer on a home you'd like to make your own is never easy. A complicating factor is that although it appears that the housing market may be stabilizing, there is no guarantee that prices won't slip further.
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Seller financing for today's market
During the recession in 2001, a strong home-sale market was instrumental in pulling the economy back on track. The opposite may be the case now. The economy, particularly employment, needs to improve before the housing market stabilizes.
Low interest rates are helping the home-sale market today, but the housing market is far from stalwart.
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CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®
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Esperanza Butler
REALTOR®
Rodeo Realty
21031 Ventura Blvd. # 100
Woodland Hills,,
CA
91364
818.926.5425
818.999.2030
Contact Me
Visit My Web Site
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Tell us what you love about living in California
What’s not to love about living in California--eternal sunshine, miles of gorgeous beaches, majestic mountains, and beautiful stretches of desert – this state has something for everyone. With so much to offer, it’s no wonder everyone would like to own a piece of California.
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Formaldehyde
Formaldehyde. The word alone recalls memories of the Hurricane Katrina victims housed in FEMA trailers and sickened by the “off-gassing” or vaporization of formaldehyde gas from the plywood and pressboard used in the trailers’ construction.
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Fixing to sell: Don't go overboard
Fixer-uppers with upside potential were in high demand when the market was appreciating at a fast pace. Once depreciation took over, speculators disappeared until 2009, when low-end foreclosure properties in some areas became hot properties -- particularly if they were selling at a 50 percent discount from the peak in summer 2006.
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Find property problems before you buy
To avoid a bad experience that could end up in a legal battle with the sellers over property problems, make sure your purchase agreement includes an inspection contingency.
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Rate-lock dos and don'ts
Interest rates dropped at the end of last year after creeping up over the summer, with 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with interest rates below 5 percent readily available.
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Pricing to sell in today's market
Putting yourself in the right mindset to sell is essential. It's the most difficult aspect of selling for most sellers. Your home is worth what a buyer is willing to pay, which may not be what you think it is worth.
Detaching yourself emotionally from your home is difficult. Clearing out years of clutter, depersonalizing your home by removing personal memorabilia, and staging your home for sale can help you step back and view the home as a commodity that needs to be sold rather than as your personal sanctuary.
Putting your home on the market at a price that reflects what you want and not what the market will bear can cost you time and money as it sits on the market unsold.
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Good Faith Estimate contains some 'quirks'
As of Jan. 1, 2010, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) required lenders to provide mortgage borrowers with a new three-page Good Faith Estimate (GFE) to protect consumers who are applying for a mortgage.
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Loan modification “blackmail”
DEAR BENNY: My wife and I received from our lender a repayment agreement for our original mortgage. This was a result of the bank initiating a foreclosure sale, which was temporarily suspended because we agreed to enter the Home Affordable Modification Program.
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Protect real estate from Medicaid
DEAR BENNY: Seven years ago, when my mother was 80, my husband and I purchased cooperative apartment shares in a senior complex for her to live in. Since at least one of the tenants had to be over 55, we put her name on the shares, as well as my name. The actual paperwork reads: " 'My Mother's Name' or 'My Name' as joint tenants with right of survivorship and not as tenants in common."
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What is post-consumer content?
What is it?
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Pay attention to home inspection
For just about anyone, a home is the single-most expensive and single-most complex thing that you'll ever own. So when making that purchase, you certainly want to do everything possible to be an informed buyer and to protect yourself and your investment.
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Sellers face new dilemma in timing the market
Some sellers have been biding their time for three years and now wonder if they should continue to wait or bite the bullet and sell now.
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Presale inspections for smoother sales
Homes are selling for less. Everyone's trying to cut back. Yet, many real estate agents think it's wise for sellers to provide presale inspections for buyers to review before they write offers. Is the cost, which could run from a few hundred to $1,000 or more, worth the expense?
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Home prices put to ZIP code test
The wealth created by the housing bubble has been wiped out, according to Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®, who spoke at the group's annual conference in November 2009. Does this mean that if you bought your home in 2005 in an area that experienced rapid appreciation from 2004-2007, you'll lose money if you sell today?
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Playing the real estate waiting game
Buyers often are reluctant to make an offer to buy a home they find early on in their search. After looking for months and not finding anything comparable, some buyers regret not having moved quickly on a listing even though they saw it early on.
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How does your garden grow?
If you’d like to have a garden, but think you don’t have the space, think again. Urban gardening techniques are allowing small-space gardening to take root in unlikely places, such as balconies, raised planters, roofs, windowsills, and postage stamp-sized backyards. Condominium dwellers and homeowners alike are getting their fingers dirty and growing their own produce, succulents, and flowers in these tiny slivers of dirt.
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